CHAPTER 53 QUEEN’S GAMBIT
Mana exploded out from Ashendra in an icy blast, encapsulating The Harbinger entirely and every building in a surrounding 100 foot diameter.
However, she didn’t believe for a second that the fight was even close to over and propelled herself forward swinging her blade at its neck in an attempt to behead it.
The ice shattered in a few short moments after being frozen. Emerging with a roar, The Harbinger retaliated with a swing of its arm.
While its speed had been enough to overwhelm and surprise Castella, it was nowhere near fast enough to catch Ashendra in the same way.
Even if it had, it wasn’t prepared for what would happen when it did connect.
Ashendra didn’t even try to block the attack, let alone dodge and instead just flicked her wrist.
All of a sudden its attack stopped completely in midair, but only its arm. The rest of its body tried to carry through the attack and failed horribly causing it to trip and hang in the air by its stationary arm. Ashendra continued forward swinging and connected with its neck.
Her blade sank into its exoskeleton carving through several feet before coming to a stop, getting lodged in deeply.
Ashendra frowned before freezing the entire surrounding area of the blade and then yanking it out causing the outer edges of the exoskeleton to fracture and crumble away as she did so.
Her blade, [Frozen Thorn], was a two-pronged attack. Being impossibly cold, anything it touched, besides her specially treated sheathe, froze instantly to its core on contact. On top of that, it was impossibly sharp. Anything she cut through, it sliced as if it were no more than thin air.
So for both the freezing aspect of her weapon and the cutting aspect to both be hindered by a single opponent on what should have been a deathstrike? It was surprising.
Ashendra schooled her expression and emotions to let no sense of worry spread to the people that were connected with her.
As [Tyrant Queen], and did that name ever so irk her, she was able to connect herself to all those whom she, and by extension they, believed to be her subjects. Through this connection she could impart part of her strength upon them, empowering them, or selectively choose them to not be targeted by any attacks she inflicted.
She could even do the same to the buildings in the area if she wanted too. However, it was already a not insignificant mana drain just to handle the citizens. She didn’t want to make that drain even more to handle the buildings. Those they could just rebuild. She could probably even bleed Alixia for the resources and money to do so as well.
Something for future Ashendra to worry about perhaps.
The ability also made everyone connected empathic to anyone else in the in connection. As such she was feeling all of the emotions of all of her citizens. And they were feeling hers. So she did her absolute best to impart confidence and calmness. She couldn’t be stressed or worried about anything. She had to make sure that her citizens knew that she believed this fight to be firmly in her favor.
Ashendra refocused her attention back on her opponent who had pulsed a wave of what several scholars believed to be an anti-magic or anti-system ability and managed to free his arm from where it was being held. Ashendra was far enough back from the short range wave that she wasn’t affected and instead waited to see its next move.
Tens, hundreds, then thousands of light blue, almost white, orbs spawned in the air around it. They charged, quickly growing larger, giving Ashendra precious little time to react to the barrage that was to come.
Ashendra raised her blade into the air and then flourished it in a small circle. She wouldn’t be able to charge it up to full-power, but she could make do with that. All she really needed was to knock out a few of them, the rest she could deal with easily enough.
The trail her blade made created a ring of pure mana. Letters began to scribe themself as the circle expanded outwards. It rotated through the air and moved, coming to rest in front of her instead of staying above her. It expanded to be twice her height in diameter.
She thrust her gauntleted hand into the circle and then grasped it. The circle was crushed within her glove as she did a quick pirouette and then threw it. The mana circle exploded into just near a thousand circles at her quick count. She’d be outnumbered by maybe three or five to one. But those were odds she could handle.
If she’d had time to fully charge it she could’ve met the beast on even terms, but she didn’t have time to worry about that.
Shortly after her circles set in place and got ready to fire, the orbs The Harbinger had placed exploded out firing their charges at her. Lances of magic flew through the air at lightning quick speeds.
Ashendra focused on aiming before firing her own attacks back at them. Her own lances of ice fired out of the circles and targeted one of the spells The Harbinger had let out. Staying in her place made it easy for her to target the spells targeting her.
Her icicles carried forth with more speed over power and impacted with The Harbinger’s attacks. Her icicles broke releasing an explosion of steam wherever they were destroyed. Its attacks were stronger than hers, but they didn’t carry through.
Ashendra smiled as her suspicions were concerned. They were lances of heat. If she sucked the heat out of them, then they disappeared. The opposite would be true for her as well, which was potentially why her blade wasn’t able to fully freeze its insides.
If the inside of The Harbinger was potentially running at high temperature the entire time and that heat could counteract what she could produce? Then they were potentially running a stalemate.
Arguably that was better than her just being outclassed at the very least. She still needed to find a way to end this fight. Preferably in her favor as well.
Ashendra was forced to move from her position as her icicles eventually ran out and she was still left with over a thousand projectiles to deal with.
The first one quickly approached, she dodged and swung through it with her blade receiving the same reaction as when her own projectiles had connected with them. The steam explosion was mildly annoying to deal with, but it didn’t impair or hinder her in any way, so she’d just have to deal with it.
She weaved through each of the attacks elegantly, almost as if she was skating through the air. And everytime she passed one of the projectiles, her blade calmly sliced through it.
1,537 attacks, Ashendra counted as she cut through the last one. Over a thousand explosions happened in the span of several seconds before she came to a rest opposite her opponent once more.
It seemed to regard her, its eyes staring balefully at her. She wasn’t intimidated. If this was the best it could do? It didn’t stand a chance against her.
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This time she didn’t allow The Harbinger the chance to start their next engagement. If Ashendra could continually control the rules of the engagement, she stood a good chance coming out on top of this fight.
Her eyes absently tracked to the pommel of her blade. Her last resort. If she was going to use such an ability anywhere, it would be here. In a fight that, if she won, would see benefits for the entirety of the races living on Kelthas.
But if she could, she wanted to hold off using it for now. If she could win this fight without using it then she would be better off for it and could use it in some other scenario.
Ashendra had a nagging suspicion that she wouldn't be so lucky.
She rushed in to distract the beast while she casted another skill of her own. This one she could channel while moving. Although that’s because the skill expected you to be running away to get out of the damage zone.
Ashendra smiled mischievously though. Not that she would admit it to anyone, of course.
She dropped her height coming in low to attack The Harbinger. Her goal here was to incapacitate it or keep it in place while she charged her skill. She attacked at its knees, or at least tried too.
The Harbinger jumped over her attack, eliciting a sound of surprise from her. No one had ever documented it jumping in the thousands of years people had been fighting it! Although Ashendra was probably the first spell-blade to engage in combat with it.
Not many brute-force fighters had options for flight and thus couldn’t attack very high off the ground. Mages were never close enough to be in physical contact with the beast in the first place so that was another moot point as well.
She didn’t allow that to hinder her movements, however. And continued on with a barrage of cuts that continually knocked away parts of its exoskeleton. She slowly worked her way through the incredibly hard material.
It was possible this might become a battle of attrition. In that case, she’d still have the upper hand at the very least seeing that she could make her way through the flesh without too much issue. But she didn’t want to drag this fight out if she could help it.
The Harbinger, in an attempt to move her away from its legs and into a more feasible position for itself, started charging lances of magic that immediately started blasting out of the ground.
It mirrored rain, falling upwards to the sky instead of down to the ground. Ashendra was forced to dodge out of the way, the wind whistling in her ears as she weaved between buildings, breaking line of sight from The Harbinger.
It let out a loud roar of indignation at her refusal to play into its hands eliciting a smile from her.
“As if I’d be so easy to play.” She thought to herself. This wouldn’t be the first ‘impossible’ opponent Ashendra had fought. And she doubted it would be the last.
She came flying back in at supersonic speeds at near ground level, she gripped her blade in both hands and swung with all her might as she passed by its knee. Her blade connected and she was immediately slowed down and then stopped before she made it past the halfway point.
Before she could even pull her sword back out She was struck from above and sent hurtling into the ground, causing a minor earthquake and making several of the buildings crumble and fall from the new crater that was formed in the middle of the street.
Ashendra immediately rolled to her feet and then kicked off the ground, getting herself back into the air.
She then charged back in, only to be met with a barrage of several hundred of the lances that it liked to summon.
Ashendra danced and flitted through the air, cutting through the barrage of magic as if they weren’t even something to regard as a threat. She led the barrage close to The Harbinger before launching herself between its legs. She swung around it in a wide circle tracing the ground with her sword before snapshotting herself back towards it, flying upwards while circling it.
Ashendra moved faster than the Harbinger was able to swing, leaving her unmolested as its own magic crashed into it in an attempt to home in on her.
And for the first time people had seen today. Possibly for the first time ever.
The Harbinger roared in pain.
The missiles of pure heat and energy pierced through its own hide with little resistance. The holes it left in its body started trailing smoke as it whipped around to face Ashendra who had come to a stop several dozen feet away.
They stared at each other before The Harbinger roared again. This one much louder than the others and then made to close the distance between the two once again.
Only to be completely stopped as Ashendra spoke a skill
[Imperial Decree]
“You may be powerful beast, but what you have in strength, you lack in cunning and intellect. You may have raw stats, but you have no idea how to use them. I’ve seen how you fought and I’ve been left wanting. And while you’re in my domain, you will obey my words.”
Ashendra spoke, confidence dripping off her every word. She kept her face and emotions under control as she saw her mana plummet for making The Harbinger come to a complete stop. She knew it would be expensive, but this was ridiculous. Several hundred thousand mana just to stop it. Anything else would’ve taken maybe one hundred thousand, more than likely less.
Ashendra raised her hands as she finished charging the skill she’d been holding on to for so long, draining even more of her already dwindling mana supplies. Nearly 50% of her mana had gone into this skill, so if this didn’t work she would have to move to her last resort. She really hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
As her hands raised, The Harbinger finally noticed the skill that had been charging up in the sky above them, the reason why Ashendra had made to keep so low to the ground, had been sitting closer to it for longer rather than pelting it with spells from afar.
Above them sat a massive lance of ice. Roughly 100 feet in length, far larger than any other she had made before. It was almost completely translucent as well, practically as clear as glass, only a minor distortion of viewing through it due to the rounded nature of the object.
Ashendra’s hand sat raised above her head as if grasping a lance that she was prepared to throw downwards. And then she spoke the name of the skill that had brought her name into legend, and immortalized her as the slayer of the [God-Tyrant].
[Skill Combination: Rose of the New Queen]
Ashendra threw her hand down with all of her might, the enormous icicle following her motions.
Ashendra was confident that if this attack connected, it would do considerable damage. The Lance would pierce through its body and then from the inside it was sprout thorns inside the body and begin sucking mana to then cause the end of the lance to bloom like a flower. The flower top and the thorns is what lent to the image of it being a rose. Something with lots of natural beauty, but could hurt the holder if you weren't careful. Perhaps, if she was lucky, even enough to kill.
Which is why The Harbinger never let it land.
The Harbinger detonated.
The explosion encompassed the entire royal district, the noble district beyond that, and stretched into the quadrants of the city beyond that.
Ashendra was thrown backwards from the force of the explosion, for the first time in decades, pain bloomed all over her body. The heat was completely overwhelming, blinding her senses to anything other than the agony she was experiencing. Anyone lesser would’ve died from the attack. Many had.
Dozens of horrendous burns covered her body, her armor not having been enough to withstand the damage let alone prevent any of it. Her arm that she had thrust out had taken the brunt of the attack. And as such it was in the worst state.
Or at least what was left of it. Up to her elbow it had completely vaporized.
Everything the light had touched had disintegrated. Nothing remained. The buildings. The people. Gone.
The Harbinger was also nowhere to be seen.
Queen Ashendra was laying on the ground when Ragnar found her. Unmoving.
For the first time ever, she had failed.
While she had driven her opponent from the field, and the people would surely see that as a win, she had failed in her own mind.
How could she look at the destruction from the final attack and believe that she had truly won in any meaning of the word?
But she didn’t let that show on her face. She didn’t let it spread through her connection to her beloved people.
From the ashes of destruction the Queen rose and raised her sword into the air.
And she proclaimed victory.